


Kill Your Darlings

by DrCHolmesLecter



Category: Kill Your Darlings (2013), Marvel Cinematic Universe, X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Brandon Sullivan cameo, Brotherhood of Mutants, Charles Being Concerned, Charles Xavier is Allen Ginsberg, Drugs, Emotional Hurt, Erik Lehnsherr is Lucien Carr, Erik has Feelings, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, Illegal Activities, Literature, Long One Shot, Love Poems, Male Homosexuality, Multi, Murder, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Not Beta Read, Obsession, POV First Person, Period-Typical Homophobia, Sharon Xavier is a nice mother, kill your darlings au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-19
Updated: 2014-07-19
Packaged: 2018-02-09 14:17:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1986132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrCHolmesLecter/pseuds/DrCHolmesLecter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Kill Your Darlings AU -</p><p>To watch the man who lit the dark valleys of my life be degraded to nothing, not even filth, one would say it’s inhumane and I assure you that it is. Still, I soaked in the image within my mind, to use his suffering as inspiration, a continuous cycle of petty revenge. Ridiculous. Messy. Unnecessary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kill Your Darlings

**Author's Note:**

> So I had a hard time deciding whether Charles/Erik should be Lucien or Allen and in the end I went with this. The lines I've used to create some of the poems is written in the end notes. It follows the order of Kill Your Darlings but it might deviate from that a little bit? I'm not sure, I haven't really re-read it since it took me a couple of days to write it (possibly stretching to a week and I wanted a break lol) 
> 
> This work is unbetad, so I'm sorry for the mistakes!
> 
> Hope you have fun reading it!
> 
> PS: If you haven't seen the film, I highly advise you to watch it!

‘...love has been betrayed, and murder done,

And great kings turned to a little bitter mould.’

\- _One Day_ Rupert Brooke

 

 

Stripped not from his powers but from his senses, he was a man who once held the loyalty of his subjects now reduced to the familiar trash in the nearby street. Four great transparent walls, then thick concrete ones has now become his home. He was a great man, a man born to lead but perhaps that had become his downfall like many others. Rage, ambition and revenge fuelled every second of his dear life and there was once a great hope in myself that maybe, I, Charles Xavier could be the one to change that. Perhaps when the trees begins to lose its leaves and begin its clockwork life, maybe I will once again regain the will to hope for his return, endlessly waiting for him to finish his creation within me.

 

 

 

To watch him cower in the corner like a tamed beast was unbecoming. To watch the man who lit the dark valleys of my life be degraded to nothing, not even filth, one would say it’s inhumane and I assure you that it is. Still, I soaked in the image within my mind, to use his suffering as inspiration, a continuous cycle of petty revenge. Ridiculous. Messy. Unnecessary.

  

 

  

“YOU’RE AS GUILTY AS I AM! YOU WANTED HIM GONE TOO, DON’T YOU DARE DENY IT-”  

“I’m doing no such thing, my friend. I gave you a choice, Erik, and you chose.”

“You sent him to me, you knew what I was capable of and you sent him to me.”

“I had hoped-”

“Bullshit! Listen to yourself! Acting as if I’m the only one involved, you wanted him gone just as much as I did, don’t ever forget that.”

 

Tell me, does your heaven and pardon still exist for people like us? His desperate pleas and curses ran through the sterile corridors, too white and empty for human eyes. I continued walking. I turned my back on the man who opened up opportunities in my bleak life just as he had pushed away my desire and dreams of a peaceful life. Was it all worth it?  

 

 

 

 

 

 

1963 Westchester, NY

 

Unruly hair, tattered dress and worn out shoes, sometimes too small for her feet, the woman no longer cared and neither did the man she married after being widowed for a year. Still, no matter how low she had sunk, my mother carried herself with an air of elegance. A cigarette is always firmly trapped between two slender fingers, sides now stained yellow just like her once perfect set of teeth. Not once has she gone for an hour without her favourite crystal glass filled with the best whiskey. The Xavier’s doesn’t drink anything less.

 

The man, plumped and grey would slouch on the mahogany chair with dark velvet cushions, a crease that he had perfected over the months lay between his brows. Kurt Marko no longer held interest on my mother, his attention now solely focused on the treasures of the Xavier household. Kurt possessed an eerie presence within the atmosphere, making it heavy and thick with fear, anger and to a certain extent, a sense of longing. Even so, he’s still the closest thing I have as a father, despite the ungodly thoughts, Kurt had always been proud of my achievements. It’s what fueled my interest and my dreams. The presence of power, a figure in my life that helped me shaped who I am and who not to become.

 

“You look just like him, have I told you that, my dear?”

“Yes mother, yes, you have.”

The corner of her lips twitched a poor attempt of a smile. “His eyes were just as blue.”

 

Wonderland. That’s where she often was. A place filled with endless greenery, vibrant fields of heavenly flowers, and the bright blue sky blanketing the hills with its occasional clouds. I see my father there, just as young as I was, mother sitting happily by his side. I listen to the echoes of their laughter, burn the image of their ghostly smiles before the grey and fraying edges catches up and tears me away. Mother would recoil back from my grasp, her stoic face perfectly slotting in, she becomes Sharon, a woman born from wealth and bred with constant rules and regulations. It makes me wonder if her parents were just as cold as her.

 

 

 

“You didn’t tell me you applied.”

“I didn’t want her to know.”

The days Kurt acted like a father was and always will be peculiar but not unwanted. Small glimmer of bright light would seep through the dark corridors in my head but they’ll never be more than cracks in the darkness. No matter how dark, a crack can only do so much so I sit by it and bathe myself with the love Kurt sometimes extended to me.

 

“I got in...I-I got into Oxford!”

Chapped lips pressed against my sweaty forehead, a small and silent congratulatory from a man who barely paid attention. He had smiled and patted my shoulder before heading back inside the house. The sound of the paper crinkling in my hand somewhat overpowered the noise crickets produced in the silent night. The contents of the letter flew out, juggling itself in celebration, and rearranging itself like a quiz especially made for me. Finally, I’ll see my sister, Raven, in all her glory instead of a dull static noise at the other end of the telephone.

 

 

 

 

  
1963 Oxford, England

Pale yellow buildings arched up to the dull grey skies, uneven pavements worn from vehicles and the constant stomping of the civilians. It makes you wonder if anyone ever stops and questions how the poor bricks felt from the continuous abuse. The moment we do, we end up in a place worse than a prison for criminal acts, we end up in a place that often has no way out, a place where every single one of us can lose and be eternally trapped in. A place just for us because society deems us unfits to continue living in this community. It’s not a place I want to end up in so my eyes focus on nothing but the blurred figures of passing patrons. Their thoughts perfectly moulded and hushed into inaudible whispers in my head. I’ve learnt to deal with them for more than a decade. I am the man who controls my own hell, all of them firmly locked in several rooms rather than one. I am my own man until a disruption told me otherwise.

 

 

 

A boy, ginger-haired, his voice monotone with hints of mischief, his thoughts being much clearer, “Excuse me” he calls out with clear determination. “What are your views on mutants?”

A few heads now turns to their group, the guide shocked with the sudden questions, his squirming now produced an audience within the quiet library. The silence was being filled with the musty smell of old ratty books in the shelves.

“The school accepts mutants; it says so in the pamphlet given to you at the beginning of the tour. Now, here are the books Oxford treasures.”

Sweat trickled down the side of his head, his breathing accelerating from the scrutiny he was suddenly faced, he should’ve prepared himself better. A clever way to redirect the focus of the question but it is not an answer. The boy had asked about his views yet, like every other student with his role, they provide a textbook answer, an answer lazily formed to avoid arguments. It is a reminder that no matter how far we fight for peace, the freedom of our thoughts must be sacrificed in return.  We cannot remove the lack of love or the immense feeling of fear but constant reassurance expertly mixed with time itself is better than bloodshed. The freedom soldiers fought for, it died along with them.

 

Artefacts of well known poets and writers, well preserved behind clean, transparent glass, books that are meant to be touched, pages caressed with soft and callous hands yet here they lay. They become nothing but well prized paper, their contents remembered and barely understood. The people who spent days and nights, season upon season, wrecking their wrinkling brain for the right words to put on paper and here they are, printed, distributed, and ready to be forgotten by the future generations. One day, there will be a revolution, history will be studied by uncaring students, literature mocked and changed into simple abbreviations simply because we decided to advance. One day, like these once precious works, my peers that excels in what they do, students whose proud face is captured and displayed on the school’s hallways, names that are engraved on shining trophies, I, along with them will cease to exist unless I make a big enough disruption in this time to be remembered.

“...Shakespeare and Tennyson.” Another dull monotone text book talks from the guide.

A disruption, a ripple, something to change the course of my life, someone to lead the way, to pull my body towards those sinful acts, that’s what I crave. It’s what I need.

“Let’s hear a few shall we!” A lean figure stands tall, the natural sunlight behind him emphasised his presence with power. A disruption. My disruption.

Flowing perfect blonde curls swayed behind him as a chair is pushed outwards, she takes an elegant step from the chair to the large wooden table, an icy smile upon her pearly face. “I like my body when it is with your body. It is so quite a new thing.”

“Muscles better and nerves more. I like your body. I like what it does,” he took her hand and stood beside her, the first perpetrator, grinning like a predator.

Another stands, skin redder than blood, tail swaying in perfect motion, “I like its how’s. I like to feel the spine of your body and its bones”.

A girl who possesses an equally crimson hair, only brightened to an orange colour by the harsh sunlight. She stands on her chair, blue skin bold and bright with scales, Raven. She looks but she doesn’t see, “and the trembling-firm-smoothness and which...”

“...I again and again and again kiss, I like kissing this and that of you,” Wings rippled from her arms and overly exposed waist, men watched with disgustingly yet freely accepted lust. I close my eyes and hear their mouth watering desires of how to take her, mutant or not. She swayed her hips fluidly side to side, the corner of her plumped lips curling up. She knows what men want.

Their head turns to a figure, someone not only I but everyone in the room suspects as their leader. He jumps from their table to the one in front, a spark of electricity flashed as our eyes met, I could feel him assessing my very being just as I begin my search in the depths of his mind. “I like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes over parting flesh” his eyes not once leaving mine instead he stared harder, wondering if he could undo every cell within me with poetry alone. “And eyes big love-crumbs,”

“That’s enough, Mr. Lehnsherr!”

The entire room shook from the vibrations of laughter, students and parents alike as our eyes bore at the comical chasing scene between the security and the group my sister belongs in. I watched the way his smile soon showed his entire set of teeth, the crinkles in his eyes becoming more prominent along with the glee emitting from his mind. He skids along towards us, my body swaying back as I braced myself on one of the cases that held a few of Oxford’s oldest collections. Time then, just as every romantic works describes, slowed down. The beating of our hearts stirred into one, the sun growing harsher, blinding my eyes and lighting up every dark corners of my mind. He is my disruption.

“And possibly I like the thrill of under me you so quite new” he whispers in less than a second or so, like a wind howling by.

 

 

 

His voice whistles like an annoying kettle or a pesky sticky substance in the school halls. His words hold nothing, no determination, no passion and no meaning. The later may not be entirely true but I so readily disregard the stale sound of his croaking voice. It is not the problem of the old professor not knowing the text he teaches but the act of repetitiveness. A professor for the last fifty years, a man who has taught students the same texts over and over again with the occasional new works, still, they stay remotely the same due to traditions. The urging feeling of wanting to break away, to free oneself from such acts is more visible in his rumpled suit than in the third years. 

“Is something the matter, Mr?”

“Xavier, sir, Charles Xavier, and...I was just wondering why we’re covering this text when we’ve studied it-”

“I don’t write the syllabus, Mr. Xavier, the educational board does.”

“Yes, I understand that but surely you must think-”

“Mr. Xavier! This school does not run itself with pretentious acts, we follow traditions and the moment you accepted to be a part of this community you have agreed to the school’s rules and regulations.

“The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing, sir.”

 

 

 

A town mostly build for the budding students of Oxford University; you’d think its streets will hold more life yet not even the stolen light of the moon seeped through my single glazed windows. There’ll be a passing chatter from the narrowed long corridors of the dorms but none of them stayed long enough to even interest me. My sanctuary, a supposed to be haven of mine, dead within minutes after the man named Lehnsherr left that extensive library. A trip that held such a promising future, the freedom I wanted to bask myself in gone-

Like the sound of the Pied Pipers flute that I have imagined as a child, the smooth tune beckoned me to follow. The wooden flooring creaking with every step, no other passing minds near me. It was as if I was walking towards a soundless dome.

“Brahms” he whispers with a thick accent, mixed from all the countries he’s lived in.

“Piano Sonata No.2 Il Andante con espressione.” My pronunciation was off by miles but the man made no comment.

“Finally, someone with taste” his voice deep and seductive, I felt him walking towards me, like a predator eyeing its prey. His closeness stopped within a couple of inches, a space big enough so that a passing figure will not question our relationship. Every minute that passes by makes every nerve within me coil in madness, my own attraction surely must be showing. He smiles at me without a care in the world. If I could pinpoint the time that I have began to give my heart to him, it will be at that exact moment. Prison and society be damned. Erik Lehnsherr, a man fuelled with ambitious dreams completed by the blanketed darkness with in him. It makes him criminally attractive.

“You seem more like the Mozart type” exuberant and an air elegance.

Erik raised his body higher, a smug look upon his face, challenging me to say more. His playful attitude was enough to make me look away, a rosy flush high on my cheeks. His very presence alone unravels my very being like a yarn slowing being teased out of its roll. “The uh poem you and the others recited in the library today, that was-”

“E. E. Cummings, I like my body when it is with-”

“I’ve read my fair share of-of that kind of literature.”

The music slowly dies down, the very tune that hid my mumblings suddenly cut off with a simple button, if only life had a switch as simple as that. His strides are short and quick, our faces centimetres apart, our breaths mixing as one. He was too close, far too close to be deemed normal yet our feet stayed planted, my feet specifically. I waited for the wood to soften, to suck me into the abyss just so I can escape the way Erik’s eyes studied me. So I can stop the attraction, the lust that’s brewing deep within me. Why is it wrong to love a person who fell into the same gender category as you? Why or how did it turn into a crime? Have we sunk so low and beyond repair that we must steal the life and the glory of others in order to shine?

“Raven was right about you.”

“And what does she say?”

He bends down, the tips of our noses slightly brushed against one another, “that you lose yourself in that head of yours.”

I saw myself plummeting down, the silence deafening me. Erik smiles as if he’s had me all figured out and I suppose he does, the close proximity of our bodies, the heat pooling from the pit of my stomach and my nervousness transpiring in the air. It was obvious.

“XAVIER!”

We stayed dead still.

“XAVIER!”

Erik waits for my reaction.

“XAVIER!”

“WHAT?!”

“Phone call!”

A laugh rumbles through his chest, he pulls back in one slow motion, eyes still on me.

“Sorry, I-”

He gestures to the door like a king dismissing a subject, which has become my existence until he wishes for me to be more than that. I will wait till I am my own man.

 

 

 

“Hello?”

“Brian?”

“No, it’s Charles”

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry, you sound so much like my husband!”

My heart aches for her, neglected, unloved, forgotten, my mother who was once a queen in her home with her beloved king by her side. It aches till my skin prickles, until my palms turn sweaty and my throat dries up. She was once woman who was once so sure of herself, with confidence and a smile so sweet that would make men flock around. “It’s alright” I whisper into the phone, one day it will all be alright.

“Will you tell Brian to come home soon?”

Is it strange for a man of my age to well up in tears in an empty corridor? The sound of heavy and intruding footsteps makes me rub the tears away in reflex. Erik swiftly puts his coat on as he noisily descends the wooden staircase, a well performed coy grin on his face. My mother pulls my focus back to her again. “I’ll tell him.”

“Tell who what? Charles, what did I say?”

“Nothing, mother.”

“Charles, don’t lie to me.”

Erik was doing it on purpose, that much I knew, the constant jumps between each platform, the way the man’s boots will get heavier and the way his mind practically screamed my name. It was a call, a call to join them, to bathe myself in an unholy amount of alcohol and drugs just like my mother.

“I’ll be home soon, mother.” There was no I love you, never had been since my father died, love was an image I created within my own sick head, an imagination a I craved, a knowledge I wanted to learn. There was no goodbye’s, why waste my breath.

 

“Wait!”

This was it, my entrance to Wonderland.

 

 

 

Clouds of smoke, sultry music, musty smell of sweat and sex filled the air. Unknown powder substances freely sprawled on every flat surface, waiting to be thoroughly sucked into our passages. Erik ushers me forward, eyes distinctly searching me. I felt over dressed and too proper in my cardigan, button up shirt and dark grey slacks even with the lights dimly lit. Men and women paraded the premises in their well stained undergarments. It was a worry and human free Wonderland, a world to escape to in the darkest hours of the night.

“Stay here, I’ll grab us some drinks.”

 

To my left, a sink is overflowed with empty bottles, a sour smell by my feet where golden liquid dripped. It would’ve made me cringe in disgust if not for the state I often saw my mother in.

“You’re pinching.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You’re pinching.” Crimson red fingers wrapped around a misty tube, tugging it away.

“I’m sorry.”

“You apologise too much.”

“I see you’ve already met Azazel! Azazel, Charles. Charles, Azazel.” Erik hands me a well cooled beer, German he says just as Azazel hands me vodka, Russian he says. That had been the start of the series of my bad decisions.

 

 

 

There are times when even being intoxicated can’t save you from, like Sebastian Shaw. Like a badly written book, I wished to hide within the shelves, covered with insane amount of dust, lost and forgotten if it will save me from the mockery.

“A man who comes to my apartment, uninvited” he sneers into my ear, spit trickling the side of my face.

“Actually, I invited him.” Curious minds turns to Erik, his voice already deeply embedded in my head.

“Lay off him, Seb” Raven.

“Did you let others fight your battles for you, _Charles_?”

“N-no.”

“Oh he speaks! And here I thought he was mute! Who are you really-”

Cackles, snickers, every damned word you could find to describe the mockery in their laughter lay it upon my feet, give me verses from poems, paragraphs from novels or godly quotes from well known people. Give me anything and I will hand my very soul, only promise that I will receive a backbone in return. Perhaps my plea had been answered for a single line flashes through my mind. My very frame, the very bones that makes up my figure squares itself with defiance and power, the short lived power from alcohol. “a...subject to no man’s breath” Shaw stopped his circular buzzing around me, brows knitted into a frown.

 

A revolution. A group of literacy vigilantes. We are The New Age.

 

 

 

“Come on, X, think!”

“Stop pressuring me!” Precious books casually thrown, ripped, torn, frayed, broken, is this our revolution?

“He’s not ready for this; the guy is panicking like a cornered nun!”

“Shut up, Riptide, that’s my virgin brother that you’re talking about!”

“Raven!”

“Wait, you’re a virgin?” Emma asked in disbelief.

“None of your goddamn business now shut up and let me think!”

Erik laughs, making my brain short circuit once again, “at least he’s got spike!”

The whole room is filled with laughter, not at all helping with my concentration. Azazel throws a book at my head, a paperback but still thicker than an opera pamphlet. “Everyone has a hell, Charles, use that hell and be creative.”

Is it as simple as that? Must a writer or a poet or an artist experience such difficulty to generate masterpieces? ‘What an artist needs is loneliness.’ That had been my answer.

“I hate and fear that despair

Wanting no passion or hell-“

“You’re just reciting verses, we’re not supposed to be doing that, we’re the bloody New Age, Charles.”

“Shut up, Rip, and let Charles continue.”

Their eyes now well positioned at each point of my head, Erik being right across me, our eyes somehow always finding a way to connect like two ends of magnets. Opposites do attract. The deep breath I took to calm my tingling nerves echoed, the sound bouncing off the four corners of the room. The vinyl now played a static sound instead of smooth jazz.

“I hate and fear that despair

Wanting no passion or hell,

‘I am not living, in pain I ache.’

The huge wound in my head began to heal

After I sailed the seas.

Later I woke.

The valley light, the mist already going.

I was alive.

 

A spell woven in music or rhyme

I lay and rested as prescription said

To make things seem compact in their essence.

When I rise lonely, will-less. Where I must

I go, and what I must I bear.

For joy I did not move and dared not speak;

  _I would regret nothing_.”

“ _Another Stranger_ Charles Highman, _Incident On A Journey_ and _The Wound_ Thom Gunn. I’m impressed, sugah.”

It was a completely different thing to receive praise from a woman such as Emma Frost; her standards are always higher than any sane person, like the others. To be accepted, not just by the group but to finally find acceptance within myself was the biggest accomplishment I had hoped to achieve, given to me in mere days. My disruption, my bleak course of life now sparked with neon coloured lights. Endless opportunities flowed through the empty halls of my mind and it was something that a person wouldn’t learn by sitting behind a desk, taking notes like a puppet. A wooden doll with no soul or purpose but built for mere entertainment to those of higher power. For once, I felt free, strings that once tied me down now happily cut and stranded.

 

 

 

My oasis. My lotus island. This is my Wonderland.

 

 

 

It is so easy to lose yourself, to scramble into the endless meadows of imaginations when no path laid itself in front of you, waiting to be followed. The alcohol, the drugs, they soon became my oasis, the very things that fuelled my hungry mind, substantially filled by its chemical toxin that can ruin my very being. An addiction. A poison to others but a cure to my literacy disease. Our inner circle has become so divine with mystery and the mystical nature of absurd and erotic literature. It is our greatest work, our masterpiece with not a single word written.

Creation cannot exist without imitation.

 

 

 

The intimate melody of his deep voice integrating with the simple flow of slow jazz, word upon word of romantic poetry pouring out of his chapped thin lips. My eyes would flicker to them, constantly, like a blushing maiden barely at the age of adulthood. The tips of his eyelashes glistened under the dusty sunlight seeping in through the thin curtains.

Erik trapped the cigarette between two lean fingers, the corner of his sinful lips curling upwards as he took a tentative glance at my direction. “Listen to this,” Erik stubbed the end of his cigarette on the nearest wooden surface. Three big strides and he plopped himself on the space next to me, the mattress dipping a little. “You know me through and through though I have not told” the smile he flashed towards my direction was different compared to the others I’ve seen, different from his shark like smile. It was less feral, softer, his blue-grey eyes brightening with every pronunciation.

“Edward Thomas.”

“Very relatable, don’t you think?” His brows playfully quirked.

 _No one as much as you_ , Edward Thomas, a love poem, an insecure feeling of danger and the blossoming heat of-

He rested his head on my lap, eyes closed and face turned away. Erik’s hand soothingly rubbed my leg, his breath evened out with each caress that passed the borderline of friendly.

“You need to write something beautiful, Charles, something that will make others remember you. Show these petty humans that even ‘monsters’ like us can create masterpieces.”

 “You mean us, we can write it together-”

“No, we can’t.” The sudden disappearance of the warmth left a great barren of emptiness within me. “I’m only ever good at beginnings, Charles.”

That alone should’ve been enough warning, a chance for me to leave this desire neglected and lost. Still, like a wailing newborn babe, I wail and wail till my needs are satisfied.

 

 

 

No matter what, people cannot get rid of the darkness otherwise lightness wouldn’t exist. No matter what you do, darkness is and will forever be beside you just as Shaw is always by Erik’s side, like a parasite. Shaw is everything; he’s confident, powerful, and charismatic and has Erik on a tight leash. My disruption, I will break him free and it shall be the perfect day.

 

When asked, everyone would turn away especially Raven and Emma, Shaw was a topic that will not be discussed even with Erik out of the room. It wasn’t as if the man was left out, he was still part of our group, and the man who kept silent and way out of our way. So it was strange to see him idly drinking scotch with a cigar in hand. Maybe it wasn’t that strange, the place we often produced our quoted masterpieces is his apartment.

We didn’t do a single thing unless you count the drugs, the smoking and the alcohol filled tea. One by one, they piled out of the smoked filled room, eyes bloodshot from god knows what. I needed to clear my head, not from the toxins, my telepathy can easily deal with that, it is my thoughts that clouds my mind. It is my thoughts that prickle every nerve. It is my very thoughts that make me want to kill the man that possessively sticks to Erik. There will be a time when his existence will no longer bother mine. The tip of his nose brushed against Erik’s neck, our eyes momentarily locking as Erik stayed oblivious. The anger, the jealousy, the mockery, it was all there, exchanged within seconds until he closed the fucking door, physically separating me from Erik.  A simple gesture that spoke three million words.

 

 

 

The wind blew in one simple direction, ruffling my hair with no care; I pulled my jumper closer to my body as we looked for a spot to settle in. Just me and Erik in this perfect day. We read and read books upon books, verses upon verses, switching one line with another, lines that don’t rhyme. In my head, this outing was mine and Erik’s second date, only in my head.

“What’s he to you?”

“Who?”

“You know who I’m talking about, Erik.”

“Shaw is...I suppose he’s my guardian angel” Erik tilted his head away from his hardcopy of Wuthering heights to face me.

“What because he does your homework for you?” I was prepared to say something more, so much more so it surprised me that I managed to hold it in. At least the question made him laugh.

“Yeah, yeah, you can say that, where would I be without him?”

 _In my arms_ , I mentally whispered to myself.

Erik intertwined his fingers together after pulling me down alongside him on the freshly cut grass. His face turning serious, deep frown lines appearing between his brows. “He’s bad news, Charles, he-he follows me...wherever I go, no matter what...he’ll be there-”

“Cut him off.”

He turned to me, a small smile on his lips, “if only it was that easy.”

“Free yourself from him, Erik, I can help you.”

This is where my deeper sins begin.

 

 

 

 

 

The glances never stopped, our connection grew deeper or maybe that was just my wishful thinking but I can feel him in my mind, his thoughts being a lot stronger than the others.

“Don’t get close to him, Charles” Azazel puffed out a circular smoke like an expert.

“Erik Lehnsherr is not good for you, sugah, not if you want your sanity intact.”

“Who says I haven’t already lost my sanity?”

“Oh he’s in pretty deep already” Janos contributed with a loud chuckle.

Raven and Erik returned to them with bags of small clear bottles and a couple of syringes.

 

 

 

I could steal a million words, hundreds of quotes from well known people and it still wouldn’t be enough to describe the sexual tension between us. The air, the smooth voice of Ella Fitzgerald in the background and the sound of Erik’s heavenly thick accent reciting Henry Miller’s glorious works of art. I have no exact recollection of who moved first but I’m quite positive that I initiated it. It had been a slow process, lips pressed against the other till Erik cupped my face, his thumb gently caressing my jaw. Erik’s lips parted with a sigh, our tongues meeting halfway. I felt my body gently push Erik down, my bones tingling with nervousness and delight. I felt his strong arms wrapping around my waist, pulling me in deeper till our crotches are well aligned. One single move, that’s all it took for a breathy moan to escape from our mouths.

Like an annoying pest you want to exterminate, a knock disrupted our heated touch.

Erik pulled away with no reluctance in his movements; it was as if my very touch burnt his skin to crisp. He paced around the room, running his fingers through his hair and frustratingly rubbing his face as the stranger continued to knock.

I stood up from his bed, “Erik?” my hand warily reaching out to him but the man recoiled, not just the shoulder I was reaching out for but his whole body turned itself away.

“I...Charles, we can’t do this.”

“Why not?”

“We just can’t!”

Flashes of malnourished men in stripes with inverted pink triangles on their clothing walked in a neat line. I should’ve paid more attention in my history lessons or my history tutors shouldn’t have brushed that information aside.

My brows furrowed in disbelief and confusion, “what you can be with Shaw but not me?”

“Charles, I’m sorry-”

 “Don’t. Just don’t. I get it.”

It took me no longer than two seconds to grab my things and leave, not bothering to answer the worried thoughts of Raven. I blocked out their thoughts and whispers in order to calm my mind. I made my way to the nearest bar and drank their entire liquor, well as close as I could.  

 

 

 

I returned back to the excruciating classes, absently listened to lectures whilst I doodled incoherent words in my books. Sometimes I would cross out lines and rewrite new ones from another poem, a new formed habit. A puff of black and red smoke firmly grabbed my arm and teleported me to a pristine white room.

“There are cars available you know.”

“That’s far too long, sugah, and it isn’t as if Azazel wasn’t willing.” Emma’s well polished and glittery nail glistened under the setting sun, Janos passed out and surrounded by piles of books whilst Azazel casually sat across Emma, a cigar in hand. “I don’t want to know what happened between you and Lehnsherr but you better make up before he gets expelled-”

“Or get someone killed” Janos lazily smiled at them.

“I-Finals are coming up.”

“You’re not dumb, Xavier, fuck his ass if that’s what it takes so we can continue this whole literacy revolution. Everything right now is too slow-paced and fucking with my head” Janos sat up and pushed his hair back. “And not in a good way.”

“Fine.”

 

 

 

I didn’t do it straight away, how could I? It’s ridiculously hard to form an apology. What we did was illegal, something that could’ve gotten us killed or thrown in prison. I suppose I should feel more thankful that Erik didn’t turn to the authorities. What I felt, what I thought we shared; maybe it had been an illusion, an illusion I made to cope with my problems, the wonderland in my own head.

My hand involuntarily paused in front of the familiar wooden door; the shuffling behind the door was the only thing that pushed me forward. The apology rolled at the tip of my tongue as I repeated word upon word to ensure that I will make no mistake. The once musty room was filled with fresh air, curtains drawn to let the breeze and the sunshine in. The once filled bookshelves now empty, the books that once resided there left imprints in their allocated spaces. Erik moved around with one thought in mind, leave.

“Erik, where are you going?”

“There’s no need for you to know.”

I took two steps closer to his hunched body as he purposely packed his luggage. “Is it Shaw?”

“No, I’ve cut him off just as you said” I could feel the tension emitting from his body before he turned to face me.

“Is that it? You’re just going to bolt out and leave? You’re not even going to tell me where you’re go-”

“I think we both know why I can’t do that” he calmly interrupted with a cold voice accompanied by a blank expression. His mind had been the only thing that pulled me away from that stoic face, his mind was in turmoil, and it was the only thing that reminded me that he’s a living being and not a psychotic robot.

I pushed him with all my might but Erik barely stumbled back, hot tears was pouring down my cheeks as my fist continued to hit his perfectly toned chest. “Fuck you!” Those were the only two words that came out of my mouth even after he had left; he left me in that godforsaken place with no way out. He created a revolution he wasn’t prepared to finish. _I’m only ever good at beginnings._ I should’ve taken those words to heart; it would’ve spared me this heartache.

 

Half of a creation abandoned by its creator with no second thoughts, that’s what I was.

 

 

Emma had been the one to rub soothing circle on my back, it had been Azazel who brought me in and out of my oasis with his crazy filled smoke and poison. It had been Janos who endlessly attempted to crack a joke, heck; it had been Shaw who brought sense and order back into my tinted life.

“Now you know how I feel” the man had whispered into my ear as he walked off after asking for Erik.

But where was my beautiful blue sister? My disruption? Gone.

 

The pitying thoughts were enough to let me walk in that sinful street alone. My body would sway, my mind would swirl, lights too bright to make me squint in disdain. I had to apologise, I’ll ask for them to come back.

Then I saw him, a man who looked remotely like Erik, more approachable, less frowning and with darker hair. It was easy.

 

 

 

The stranger, Brandon, that was the man’s name, Brandon. The burning pain was soon veiled with exquisite pleasure as he thrust and thrust into me, the sound of our skin slapping into each other and our breathy moans filled my ears. His mind, oh god his mind was filled with nothing but the thought of pleasuring me and it was enough to drown me. His fingers tightened around my hips, his hold too firm but I made no move to stop him, I wanted to feel the physical pain to numb the other. I wanted to be marked and used. Brandon’s thoughts became unfocused, his thrust becoming more erratic and needy; he crashed our mouths together, our tongue fighting for dominance. He bit and he sucked, from my neck to my collarbones, as I cried out in ecstasy. Brandon’s body slumped down, cock still deeply imbedded inside me. I caressed his back and felt small indention on them; I curiously peeked and blushed as I saw the claw marks. He nuzzled my neck and gently pulled out, making me whimper from the loss.

“I’d really like to see you again” his voice was different from Erik’s, more American.

Brandon Sullivan. He wasn’t a distraction but a challenge, a challenge that I can abandon whenever I wanted. It was an easy relationship.

 

 

 

The cold water trickled down my body, my hands rubbing my face as I recalled the several rounds of sex I had with a stranger, although calling Brandon a stranger seems illogical especially after last night’s events. My virginity gone from a man I barely knew and I don’t regret a single thing.

Maybe just a little since I had hoped that it would be Erik.

 

Whispers seeped into my darkened room, my forehead now pressed against the cold door.

_Do you think he’s part of it?_

_Who, Charles? Doubt he’s sunk that low_

Oh if they only knew.

_Charles wasn’t part of it._

_How do you know, bozo?_

_We were with him most of the night._

With great reluctance, with my heart pounding against my chest, I walked out, my head held up high just as my mother had taught me. How I want to be back in her arms, back in Westchester with her humming her favourite tune in my ear whilst we sway. Everything was so much easier back then, everything was in order. The walk down a flight of stairs to reach the telephone booth was long especially with the curious glances and deafening thoughts.

My hand had shook as I turned the wheel to dial Raven’s home number, a high pitched voice answered. Not Raven.

“Hello?”

“Angel?” I gripped the receiver tighter and pressed my body against the wall, attempting to blend in with the grey concrete walls. “Where’s Raven?”

“What? Haven’t you heard?”

A series of images flashed through my mind, Shaw’s more prominent than the others. Had the man done something? Was Raven hurt? Oh god, Erik- “Heard-heard what?”

“Janos, Erik and Azazel are in prison, they tried to take Raven too but she got away. I haven’t heard from her since. Charles, Sebastian is dead-”

I abruptly ended the call. No, it wasn’t possible; I didn’t want to believe it. I had seen Sebastian just a few days ago.

 

 

 

Prisoners shook those metal bars, shouting and spitting as I walk down the hall, my shoulder grazing the concrete next to me. I went through several rooms, no metal in sights, pure concrete surrounded the place then glass and soon plastic. Erik stood up from his cot as I stood closer to him. Erik in all his glory, beaten and now caged.

“Charles” he pressed his face between the bars, knuckles whitening as he gripped those cold plastic bars. “Charles you’ve got to help me, please, help me.”

My face scrunched up, our foreheads merely separated by those ghastly bars. I tried to ignore the sunken skin under his eyes, the way those blue-grey orbs was slowly losing their shine. This wasn’t the Erik that stood up on the table, reciting an erotic poem for the newcomers to see. This was Erik away from his natural state, away from the metal that gloriously sang to him.

“I need you, Charles.”

Those words, he had said the exact the same thing to Shaw, to the man who now lay in a cold metal slab, ready to be put to rest for the final time.

 

 

 

Two short rings, that was all it took for someone to answer. “Hello?”

“Mother?”

“Charles! Charles, where are you?”

“I’m in Oxford, remember?”

There was silence over the phone, “oh...”

“Mother? What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

“I’ve missed you that’s all.”

“Mother...”

“I’ve divorced Kurt...he and Cain left.”

“And the maids?”

“They’re not you, love.”

I found myself smiling despite the situation of my current life, “how long have you been sober?”

“Two weeks, darling, can you believe it? Two whole weeks!”

Both our chuckles echoed in the telephone, “yes, yes, of course I do, I knew you could always do it! You sound so much happier, mother.”

Another pause.

“But you don’t...what happened, Charles?”

I explained it to her, right from the beginning, from the moment I laid eyes on Erik Magnus Lehnsherr, to the literacy revolution, to Shaw and down to my attraction to men. She hushed my sobs, I could almost feel her rubbing my back and placing soft kisses at the top of my head just as she once used to. It was so strange to hear the mother I used to know, the mother my father loved.

“Charles, listen to me very carefully, leave Brandon, he’s no good for my precious son, you deserve so much more than him and Er-talk to the others, find out what they’ve been hiding about Shaw and this boy. I will hire someone to look for Raven, I can bail your friends but Charles...”

“But you’re not sure whether you can help Erik.”

“Find out everything you can and we’ll come to a decision.”

“Yes, mother.”

“Charles?”

I answered with a simple hum.

“Take care of yourself, I love you so much and I don’t want to lose you too.”

“You know that you won’t. Thank you, mother.”

 

 

 

I burst into Emma’s apartment after informing her that I was nearby. She and Azazel was busy packing their things. The two of them were buzzing around like hyper bees unable to pick on which direction to go to. Emma offered me a small smile as a series of curses ran from Azazel mouth in Russian. His tail would flick around, grabbing things behind him to put in his luggage.

“You can’t just leave...”

“Sugah, we have no choice.”

“What about Erik? Are you really going to leave him there?”

A flash of guilt ran through Emma’s face before she turned away and walked out of the bedroom. I turned my veiled fury at Azazel.

“Charles, Shaw was our friend too. He saved not only Erik’s life but mine and Janos too, and more so, Emma.” A click of the luggage being shut was sharp like the sound of a knife piercing flesh.

“But-”

The once pearly beauty of Emma Frost now shone with dullness, just as Erik’s eyes lost its shine. She folded her arm across her stomach. “Charles, Erik didn’t just stab Shaw...he-he tied him like an animal ready to be butchered and stuffed stones in his pockets...he was alive, Charles, he was still alive until Erik drowned him...and I assisted him.”

Azazel grabbed their cases, mentally apologised and just like a storm, they left without looking back at the damage they left behind.

 

 

 

It took days to even begin writing, my fingers always suspended on top of the typewriter, my mind frozen in thoughts, trying to find the right words to describe and to explain these events. I started with the ending at least that was something I was certain about. I scribbled on the paper with my messy writing.

 

 

 

I watched the way Erik’s eyes scanned each page, “’Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude’...There had been a time when you felt grateful for the things he had done. A time when you needed him just as much as I needed you. A time when that perfect day existed.” He rumpled the thick booklet and slammed his free palm on the plastic bars. “Don’t you dare show this to anyone, you can’t.”

“Then tell them the truth, Erik.”

“No Charles, you don’t understand-”

“Just tell them the truth.”

Erik waved the booklet on my face, his fingers curling tighter around the stapled papers. “And what? You think this is the truth? This is fiction, Charles, your fiction!”

It took a couple of tries to pry my work off Erik’s hands, a couple more for me to finally come to a decision and turn away.

“YOU’RE AS GUILTY AS I AM! YOU WANTED HIM GONE TOO, DON’T YOU DARE DENY IT-”  

“I’m doing no such thing, my friend. I gave you a choice, Erik, and you chose.”

“You sent him to me, you knew what I was capable of and you sent him to me.”

“I had hoped-"

“Bullshit! Listen to yourself! Acting as if I’m the only one involved, you wanted him gone just as much as I did, don’t ever forget that.”

My feet, it was as if they were glued to the floor, I willed myself to walk away, tried to block out the way Erik pounded his fist against those bars.

“YOU MIGHT AS WELL KILL ME, CHARLES!” I felt him at the back of my mind, voice shaking with fear, “don’t leave me here.”

 

It was only till I left the facility that I realised I had been crying.

 

 

 

My mother didn’t need to ask what had happened once I called and said three simple words, “Come home, Charles” and I did.

 

 

 

 

_To Erik Lehnsherr_

I distinguish the scent of your hair: so now the limber

Lightning falls from heaven

And disappear.

 

Now I climb alone to the high room

Above the darkened square

‘I love you with passion and fury and pain.’

 

In the dark hours,

Eternity is ours.

We made the universe to be our home.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> ‘The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.’ – Henry Miller  
> I like my body when it is with your, E. E. Cummings
> 
> ‘a...subject to no man’s breath’ – The Wound, Thom Gunn
> 
> ‘I hate and fear that despair  
> Wanting no passion or hell,  
> ‘I am not living, in pain I ache.’  
> The huge wound in my head began to heal  
> After I sailed the seas.  
> Later I woke.  
> The valley light, the mist already going.  
> I was alive. 
> 
> A spell woven in music or rhyme  
> I lay and rested as prescription said  
> To make things seem compact in their essence.  
> When I rise lonely, will-less. Where I must  
> I go, and what I must I bear.  
> For joy I did not move and dared not speak;  
> I would regret nothing.’ – Another Stranger, Charles Highman. Incident On A Journey and The Wound, Thom Gunn. 
> 
> ‘You know me through and through  
> Though I have not told’ – No one so much as you, Edward Thomas
> 
> ‘Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.’ – Thomas Jefferson
> 
> [Poems used to create – To Erik Lehnsherr ]
> 
> ‘I distinguish the scent of your hair: so now the limber  
> Lightning falls from heaven  
> And disappear.’ – On the balcony, D. H. Lawrence
> 
> ‘Now I climb alone to the high room  
> Above the darkened square’ – The room above the square, Stephen Spender
> 
> ‘I love you with passion and fury and pain.’ – Question and Answer, Michael Roberts
> 
> ‘In the dark hours,’ – She tells her love while half asleep, Robert Graves
> 
> ‘Eternity is ours.  
> We made the universe to be our home.’ – Goodbye, Allun Lewis
> 
> [ Some of the dialogue has been taken from the actual film Kill Your Darlings, pictures used are created by me. ]
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
